Friday, January 30, 2009

Information On Iraq’s Voting System

As reported before, Iraq’s 2009 provincial elections will have a proportional, open-list system. Blocs or individuals will have to meet a minimum number of votes to win office, and then provincial seats will be divided up to those that pass this threshold and have the most votes. Blocs that don’t reach the minimum will have their votes given to the winning ones. There is also a quota for women candidates, and for minorities in specific provinces that could complicate matters. The system is obviously weighted towards the largest, most well known lists that have the organization, money, and access to the media to win enough votes to be seated.

How Iraqis will actually vote is a bit complicated. First, voting will take place in fourteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. The Kurdistan Regional Government will decide when elections will be held in Dohuk, Irbil, and Sulaymaniya, while balloting has been postponed in Tamim province. All Iraqis over 18 years old have been automatically registered through their food ration cards. There are around 37,000 voting centers in fourteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces, with voting allowed from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Iraqis will pass through a series of security checks to enter, and then sign in with a monitor. Voters will then have three choices, vote for just a list, select a specific person from a list, or pick an independent candidate. If a person wants to vote for an independent they have to find their name and number on a list posted on a wall chart, and then mark them on the ballot. If they plan to just select a bloc they will be listed on the ballot with their name, number, and party logo. If they want to vote for a specific individual on a list they need to find the person’s name on the wall chart, and mark that as well as their party on the ballot. If they don’t have the list number and the candidates number their vote will be invalidated. The charts with the people’s name on them can be massive. Baghdad for example has more than 2,400 candidates running. When finished they will have their finger dipped in ink, just like in the 2005 election to prevent repeated voting. The big change from that election is the fact that Iraqis have the opportunity to vote for individual candidates if they want. In 2005 they could only pick lists that then selected the people to fill the provincial councils.

When voting is completed on January 31 the Iraqi Election Commission will then determine what parties win seats based upon a proportional system. They will take the total number of votes cast and divide by the number of council seats available to determine the minimum number required to gain a seat. The positions will then be given to the candidates from the winning lists with the most votes. According to the United Nations, this system is used in Germany, Macedonia, Spain and Bosnia.

An example of how this might work is the following. If there were 1,000,000 votes cast for 32 seats, a list would need 31,250 votes to gain one seat. Every additional 31,250 votes that list received would earn them another position. If Maliki’s State of Law bloc won half of the vote, they would receive half of the seats. The eight male candidates and four women from that list that received the most votes would then go on to hold office. If this were Basra, the top vote getting Christian group would get one seat as well.

There are a couple points that could complicate the results of this election. First, the system is obviously biased towards the larger parties that have the name recognition, organization, money, and access to the media to gain enough votes to reach the minimum. The election law also says that parties that fail to reach that amount will have their votes given to the ones that do. That may lead to bitter feelings amongst both lists and voters who feel cheated by the results. The two quotas will also mean positions will be given to candidates that don’t have as many votes as other possible winners. The women quota especially, may shut out some smaller parties who have no female candidates. Last, while much has been made of the 14,000 people running for office, it’s not known how many of them are actually known by the public, and whether they are qualified. Maliki’s list is expected to do well because of the Prime Minister’s newfound popularity, but will that mean those candidates will do any better than the current provincial councils, many of which have proven to be corrupt, incompetent, and full of cronies?

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com